Some prior art ejection lever arrangements for a tape player are configured to eject a tape cassette by simultaneously compressing fast-forwarding and rewinding levers or by compressing an independently provided ejection lever. In both cases, levers take their uniform positions projecting from the front outer margin of the tape player regardless of whether a tape cassette is present or absent in the tape player. The projecting lever often causes inconvenience in insertion of a tape cassette or in display of the tape player in shops. Also, projecting levers are often caught or hit by some external things which probably damage the lever.
Further, the uniform position of the lever before and after insertion of a tape cassette does not indicate whether any cassette is present in the tape player, and a user cannot acknowledge presence or absence of a cassette in the tape player unless he looks into the interior of the tape player. This is very inconvenient particularly in use in a car.
It is therefore desired that the lever projects forwardly merely in presence of a cassette in the tape player but retires to an inner position in absence of a cassette.
Most of tape players have a pack stopper supporting the cassette, a guide arm and an inversion spring interposed between the two former members, so when that the guide arm is rotated rearwardly from its forward position, the inversion spring stores an energy and subsequently pulls a cassette inwardly by its inverting action. The guide arm is comovably connected to an eject lever via an eject plate. Therefore, if the eject lever and eject plate are held in their rearward positions, the guide arm also stops at its rearward position and cannot eject a cassette. From this viewpoint, it is necessary to return the guide arm to its forward position capable of ejecting a cassette, while holding the eject lever and eject plate stationary at their rearward positions. In this case, the use of a long inversion spring will permit the guide arm to return to its forward position, but will prevent a subsequent suction of a cassette. Therefore, this method cannot be employed.
From these reasons, it has been difficult to hold the eject plate and eject lever at their rearward positions in absence of a cassette in the tape player.
One might propose to reduce the projecting amount of the lever in absence of a cassette. However, this invites a new problem that misoperations will increase during ejection of a cassette due to a decreased insertion stroke of the lever.